On route to Earth, Unknown Time.

December 27th, 2009.

Alden listened to the quiet hum that surrounded him for several minutes before he was finally able to force his eyes open. Almost immediately a mild feeling of claustrophobia raced through him as he struggled to lift his head. He was inside a small round room, white padding of some sort covered the walls, and a circular window, tinted maroon sat just outside of his sight.

Alden had no idea where he was, but his entire body felt unresponsive, even his fingers refused to do much more than twitch minutely against the armrest of whatever chair he was attached to. There was a panel covered in buttons underneath the window, and strange symbols scrolled across the small glass panel there, yellow blocky lettering in some unknown alphabet. A prompt of some kind, bright red and alarming was flashing over the top of the strange letters, looking like some kind of error message that was vying for attention.

The panic of being seemingly paralyzed slowly washed away over the course of the next fifteen minutes as he slowly regained the ability to move his body, starting from his fingertips and moving up his arms, and finally with a great deal of effort he was able to lift his head to look out of the window.

Stars.

Alden felt another streak of unease cut through him, his stomach contracted sickeningly with the realization that there was nothing below whatever room he was inside of, he was in space. A bright light was covering the right side of the window, and when he managed to lean forward enough to get an angle on what it was he found the sun. A moment of intent searching later he located a growing shape in the direction the craft seemed to be moving, an awfully familiar shape that any human being would recognize from a picture with just a glance.

Alden was approaching the Earth, from space, inside a flying spacecraft of some kind and he had absolutely no idea how he had gotten here.

Almost an hour later he was really starting to get worried, as the Earth continued to grow larger in the window and he was well aware that he had no idea how to engage any kind of landing mechanism inside the craft, which obviously would result in him crashing and dying on arrival.

Alden couldn’t read the writing on the monitor panel at all, although the shape of the foreign alphabet it did have a vague sense of familiarity to it, so he was left with two options as far as he could tell.

Option one was to let this thing complete whatever course it intended without interfering, and possibly dying, or option two, press buttons at random and hope he didn’t somehow eject himself into space and die. Neither seemed like an intelligent decision, but they were all he had. His body had finally reached a point where he could almost feel everything once more, the return of sensation across his body seemed strangely connected with the approach to earth. Something twitched against his back and he froze, there was something in this craft with him, moving slightly in-between him and the chair.

The Earth had grown to completely encompass the window now, and what looked like heat or fire was starting to color the window an even brighter shade of yellow-red but he couldn’t drag his mind away from the thing behind him to appreciate the view or even be scared of his impending crash landing.

The craft he was in began to vibrate as a landmass appeared distantly below with a large body of water visible in the middle.

Alden had seen enough horror movies to realize he was about to die a horrific death via an alien parasite, so he slowly readied himself to attack, and when he gathered the willpower to force himself into action he sat forward before jamming his hand down behind him in an instant.

Pain lanced up his spine as he grabbed whatever it was, and a sensation of touching himself flared up along with it and his mind raced in confusion as he painfully dragged the wriggling thing around in front of him to stare at it without comprehension.

A long brown hair covered thing wriggled painfully in his grip as the spacecraft crashed into the water at breakneck speeds, but somehow he found himself unmoved inside the craft. Some kind of inertia dampening effect stopping him from experiencing the feeling of being thrown around in the small area violently. Water rushed past the window violently as the craft reached the bottom and abruptly stopped as it cratered the area, sending sediment and dirt up into the water and reducing the visibility to nothing.

Alden dragged his gaze away from the window to look down at the thing in his hand.

“Why do I have a tail?” Alden said quietly, heart thudding desperately inside his chest.

Alden slowly let his apparent tail go, noting idly that it looked very much like the kind of tail a Saiyan might have, and the savage pain vanished almost immediately after he stopped trying to crush it to death, he found himself able to move it as naturally as breathing as the final effects of the paralysis faded away.

The yellow lettering on the monitor panel settled, but the red flashing prompt continued to blink over the top of it demandingly. His mind was running the word Saiyan over in his mind as he took in his surroundings once more, the writing that had looked familiar reminded him of the blocky lettering on the Scouters from the anime, and the round spacecraft was obviously an Attack Ball in hindsight.

What on earth was happening here? How did he get the tail? How did the Attack Ball even exist, and how was it able to actually fly through space and re-enter an atmosphere? Alden realized he had no idea how he was going to get out of here, and the unease returned almost as if it hadn’t left at all.

He had landed inside a body of water somewhere in the middle of a landmass, he had been too distracted by the tail and the fire to register which country it had been. How deep underwater was he, should wait inside for someone to investigate the crash? Had anyone even noticed it in the first place? The choice was taken entirely out of his hands as the pod door suddenly opened and water rushed in.

Aiden managed half a breath before he was underwater, and in complete darkness, he noted in the sudden adrenaline spike that he could see pretty well considering the lack of light as he pulled himself out of the Attack Ball.

He planted his foot on the top of the ball and pushed upwards as hard as he could, dragging his arms down at the same time as he desperately swam upwards, following the stream of bubbles from the pod to the surface, he realized he wasn’t running out of breath as quickly as he expected as he swam.

Aiden could see the surface of the water now, as the light penetrated enough of it for him to see properly now, the water seemed so clear to his sight now, it was strangely calming, and the lack of most sounds contributed to the effect.

Aiden knew he hadn’t been able to see this well prior to this whole event, so something had happened to his eyes as well and it was another factor he was storing as evidence for a theory that was becoming more likely by the second. An Attack Ball, A Saiyan’s tail, massively increased lung capacity, vastly improved eyesight, and he was swimming at a much faster speed then he thought was possible.

Had he somehow become a Saiyan?

Aiden broken the surface and took in a long deep breath, he hadn’t even approached the point of struggling for air. He immediately confirmed that his vision had indeed improved greatly, as he took in the details of tens of boats moving towards his position, lights flashing on the tops of only some of them. His hearing had also received a similar upgrade as he could hear the loud conversations clearly, that was taking place on the boats still a hundred meters away from him.

“Remain where you are, do not approach, we will come to you!” A loud voice rang out clearly over some kind of loudspeaker system on one of the boats. “Any hostile movements will be met with force, please lift a single hand if you can understand this message!”

Aiden had no intention of making any hostile movements against anyone, so he raised one of his hands, as he paddled with the other to keep himself afloat. One of the smaller boats approached very slowly, and a man in a police vest stood at the front sternly.

“I am Lieutenant Williams,” The officer said calmly. “Identify yourself.”

Aiden immediately noted the man’s accent.

“Aiden Neve,” Aiden said easily.

“Your spaceship was spotted landing in the lake,” Lieutenant Williams continued, “What are your intentions here?”

“You have an American accent,” Aiden said helplessly, “I’m from Australia, I woke up in that spaceship, and now I somehow have a tail, I’m fairly sure somebody experimented on me?”

Lieutenant Williams paused for a long moment before placing his phone back to his ear and listening, and Aiden continued to paddle in the water beside the boat unthreateningly.

“If we can confirm that as true and you co-operate with us, we will do our best to sort this situation out,” Lieutenant Williams said calmly, “Do you understand and agree, Aiden?”

“Yeah,” Aiden said easily.

Lieutenant Williams listened to his phone for a moment before putting it away, before hooking a lightweight ladder over the edge of the boat.

“Come on up,” Lieutenant Williams said evenly. “Avoid making any sudden movements and keep your hands visible at all times to avoid any incidents.”

Aiden paddled over to the ladder and pulled himself up slowly, realizing very quickly that he was much stronger than before when he lifted his body weight like it wasn’t even there. He ascended the ladder at a slow deliberate pace to avoid setting any of them off and climbed over to stand in the boat.

Aiden glanced around at all of the officers calmly for a moment before nodding.

“I’m totally naked,” Aiden said evenly, “In case you didn’t notice.”

“We noticed,” A female officer said wryly as she held out a simple brown blanket.

“Thanks.” Aiden sighed, belatedly covering himself.

“I’ll need you to sit down here and remain there until instructed otherwise.” Lieutenant Williams said calmly, gesturing to the bench against the cabin wall.

“No problem,” Aiden said easily.

Aiden moved slowly over to the bench and sat down, with his hands visible outside of the blanket.

“You said you were from Australia,” Lieutenant Williams asked evenly, “Where exactly?”

“Melbourne.” Aiden said calmly, “I’m the CEO of SUDA Inc.”

“SUDA?” Lieutenant Williams asked simply.

“Sleek Urban, Design, and Aesthetics,” Aiden said easily.

Lieutenant Williams studied him for a long moment before slowly noting it down on his pad and asked another question. Aiden almost frowned at the strange reaction, the officer clearly didn’t believe he was who he said he was for some reason.

“You said you were experimented on? Can you elaborate?” The officer asked seriously.

Aiden nodded calmly as he thought about how he wanted to spin the story.

“I’m assuming I was experimented on because last night when I went to sleep I certainly didn’t have a tail,” Aiden said evenly, “I didn’t go to sleep in a spaceship either, I went to bed in my apartment on Elizabeth street.”

Lieutenant Williams noted it down quickly before frowning down at him.

“How old are you?” The officer asked steadily.

“Twenty-six,” Aiden said easily.

“You don’t look twenty-six,” Lieutenant Williams said immediately.

Aiden blinked in surprise at the response, opening his mouth and then closing it again. What did you say to someone who told you that?

“How old do I look?” Aiden said frowning, glancing around for some kind of reflective surface but making no move to stand up.

“Seventeen at most.” The officer said without hesitation.

“I’ll take it as a compliment than,” Aiden said strangely.

“It’s not one.” Lieutenant said dryly, “So you went to bed last night in your apartment in Australia, and woke up in a spaceship looking like this?”

Aiden stared at the man helplessly for a second before he managed to pull himself together again.

“That’s exactly what happened.” Aiden confirmed, “Where are we anyway?”

“Lake Michigan, just offshore from Chicago.” Lieutenant Williams said after a moment's pause. “You know where that is on a map?”

“America.” Aiden said wryly, “The accent gave it away though.”

“I don’t want to hear about accents from you.” Lieutenant Williams snorted. “So you have no intention of doing anything strange like attacking a city or eating people?”

Aiden looked at the man in disbelief.

“Of course not,” Aiden said alarmed, “Why on earth would you think that?”

Lieutenant Williams gave him a strange look at that.

“You’re a bit naïve for a supposed CEO, aren’t you?” The officer said candidly, “That kind of thing literally happens all the time.”

Aiden was fairly sure the guy was just messing with him now, so he just shook his head at the nonsensical remark, he had just crash-landed back on earth after apparently being abducted, so he could deal with some strange remarks. They had almost made landfall by now, and the city looked even more impressive then he would have expected even for such a famous city, actually, a lot of the buildings looked a great deal more modernized then he would have expected and he had something of an eye for such things given his line of work.

More police cars greeted them as they led him down the pier they had tied off on, Aiden couldn’t help but notice all of the flashes of cameras and questions being called out. So he waved happily to the press before they had him slip into the back of one of the cruisers.

“So what happens now?” Aiden asked curiously.

“We take you down to the station.” Lieutenant Williams said from the passenger seat, “Once we confirm that you are who you say you are and figure out everything else we can about the situation you’ll likely be sent on home to Australia.”

Aiden nodded easily, he would be home in time for supper.

Aiden sighed for the hundredth time as he sat in the simple grey room waiting for the Lieutenant to come back again, it had been hours and nobody had come to inform him of anything yet, it seemed like such a waste of time to just be sitting around like this, accomplishing nothing at all.

He could be working, or out drinking, or meeting women in nightclubs for sordid affairs. Sitting in an empty room was the complete opposite of a good time, and messing around with his strange new tail could only remain actively entertaining for so long.

There weren’t even one of those mirrors like in the movies.

Aiden didn’t know whether or not he really was a Saiyan, or this was somehow an elaborate trick, but the tail was definitely real, and he was already planning on paying a plastic surgeon or someone to remove it, just in case it was entirely realistic and he turned into a giant ape when he looked at the moon or something.

Besides having a tail in a world where nobody else did was humiliating and would make him a target for jokes made at the costly expense of his painstakingly crafted reputation of competence and professionalism. Aiden had worked hard to get where he was so young, and he wasn’t going to let some silly tail jeopardize his hard-won success.

Regardless of how awesome dragon ball z or the idea of becoming a Saiyan was.

Aiden was trying to figure out where he would sit in a world where he was the physically strongest being, no average human, not even the strongest weightlifter, or the fastest sprinter could hope to approach even a Saiyan as Goku had been as a child.

Aiden could remember bullets being deflected off his skin on multiple occasions, and that had been back in dragon ball, as well as being strong enough to lift cars, fight massive dinosaurs, and vanish from the human sight with his speed.

All of that should at least be within his grasp, even if he was as weak as Goku had started as. What had his power level been back then before they had stopped using the system entirely? Ten? Surely he could match that at least, he was willing to work as hard as he needed if the result were making himself ludicrously stronger. Aiden could become an MMA fighter or a boxer, and dominate the competition with ease, earn himself some of that cash cow, with probably zero risks on his part.

Busting his ass as the CEO of a boring-ass construction company could be a distant footnote in his biography a few years, he wouldn’t be quitting his job until he was sure reality actually worked out that way, but still the dream of fame, luxury and pleasure were there to be grasped.

Aiden couldn’t help the smile that worked its way onto his face.